HP UX Red Hat Direry Server Software manual Appendix A. Ldap Data Interchange Format

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Appendix A. LDAP Data Interchange Format

Red Hat Directory Server (Directory Server) uses the LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) to describe a directory and directory entries in text format. LDIF is commonly used to build the initial directory database or to add large numbers of entries to the directory all at once. In addition, LDIF is also used to describe changes to directory entries. For this reason, most of Directory Server's command-line utilities rely on LDIF for either input or output.

Because LDIF is a text file format, LDIF files can be created using virtually any language. All directory data is stored using the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. Therefore, the LDIF files created must also be UTF-8 encoded.

For information on using LDIF to modify directory entries, see Chapter 2, Creating Directory Entries.

1. About the LDIF File Format

LDIF consists of one or more directory entries separated by a blank line. Each LDIF entry consists of an optional entry ID, a required distinguished name, one or more object classes, and multiple attribute definitions.

The LDIF format is defined in RFC 2849, The LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF). Directory Server is compliant with this standard.

The basic form of a directory entry represented in LDIF is as follows:

dn: distinguished_name

objectClass: object_class

objectClass: object_class

...

attribute_type[;subtype]:attribute_value

...

Every LDIF entry must have a DN and at least one object class definition.

Include any attributes required by the object classes defined for the entry.

All other attributes and object classes are optional.

Object classes and attributes can be specified in any order.

The space after the colon is optional.

Table A.1, “LDIF Fields” describes the LDIF fields shown in the previous definition.

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HP UX Red Hat Direry Server Software manual Appendix A. Ldap Data Interchange Format, About the Ldif File Format